WINS (AM)
'''WINS (1010 kHz), known on-air as "Ten-Ten WINS", is a radio station in New York City, owned by CBS Radio. It's studios are located in midtown Manhattan & it's transmitters are located in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. WINS is known for broadcasting an All-news Radio format, which the station has carried continuously since 1965. History The station 1st went on the air in 1924 on 950 kHz as WGBS, named after & broadcasting from it's owner, Gimbel's department store. It moved to 860 kHz sometime around 1927 & to 600 around 1930, settling on 1180 around 1931. It was bought by William Randolph Hearst in 1932 & by 1934 had adopted it's present callsign (named after Hearst's I'nternational '''N'ews 'S'ervice). It changed it's frequency from 1180 to 1010 on March 29, 1941 as part of the NARBA. The Cincinnati-based Crosley Broadcasting Corporation purchased the station from Hearst in 1946. Rock & Roll Crosley sold the station in 1953 to the Gotham Broadcasting Corporation & WINS became one of the 1st stations to play rock & roll music. Among it's early & famous personalities included disc jockeys Alan Freed & Murray "the K" Kaufman. Sports broadcaster Les Keiter, a latter-day member of the 1st generation of legends in that field, served as sports director for a period in the '50s. Keiter is perhaps best remembered for his recreations of San Francisco (formerly New York) Giants baseball games, which WINS carried in 1958 to keep disconnected Giants fans in touch with their team, who moved west along with the Brooklyn Dodgers the previous year. By the early 1960s WINS faced stiff competition for the rock-&-roll audience from 3 other stations, WMCA, WMGM & WABC. The competition continued after WINS was purchased by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1962. But by 1963, WMCA upstaged them all & became the top-rated top 40 station in the New York area. WINS consequently saw a decline of ratings between 1963 & 1965, normally trailing WMCA & WABC by some distance. By this time WMGM had already defected to a beautiful music format under it's previous call letters, WHN in February 1962. "All News, All the Time" On April 19 1965, after weeks of speculation, WINS changed it's format radically. The station became the world's first all news station, going with the format around the clock. WGR Radio in Buffalo, NY had adopted an all-news & talk format a full year earlier & other stations may have also preceded WINS in this format. WINS immediately established a template for their format, with an easily-indentifiable, distinctive teletype sound effect playing in the background (some other stations later dropped this, but WINS has kept it) & the slogans, "All News, All the Time", "The Newswatch Never Stops" & "You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world". The latter tagline was a reference to WINS' format clock, which segments every 20 minutes. For a time in the late 1970s, WINS had a 3rd slogan, "New York wants to know - & we know it". The format has remained unchanged, save for minor tweaks, over the years. Currently, WINS regularly programs traffic reports from Shadow Traffic every 10 minutes on the "1s" (6 times an hour), sports updates every quarter-hour (twice an hour @ :15 & :45), weather reports from AccuWeather every 4 mins, entertainment news once an hour (@ :38) & business news twice an hour (@ :26 & :56). When breaking news warrants, WINS will break format to provide continuous coverage of any event. In 1995, Westinghouse Electric purchased CBS, a move which made WINS a sister station to it's long-time rival WCBS. Early on, there had been speculation that either station would drop the all-news format, but these notions were squelched rather quickly. In fact, the performance differences in both stations supplement their continued overlap. WINS' ratings numbers are better within New York City, while WCBS's listener strength is greater in the suburbs, possibly owing to it's much stronger signal. And, from a programming standpoint, WINS' harder approach is offset by WCBS' lighter, more conversational style. Since the Westinghouse-CBS merger, both stations have continued to perform well in both ratings & advertising revenue. Influence WINS' switch to all-news was initially derided as a poor programming choice. Several years earlier, Tijuana, Mexico-based border blaster XETRA programmed an English-language all-news format, which was unsuccessful, as was also the case with Chicago station WNUS. As a result, many in the radio industry predicted a quick demise for WINS. However, Westinghouse Broadcasting supported the format & WINS eventually prospered with it. Westinghouse made similar format changes @ 2 other stations: KYW in Philadelphia, in September of 1965 & KFWB in Los Angeles, in March of 1968. Together, WINS, KFWB & KYW served as the prototype all-news stations & all 3 succeeded in attracting both listeners & advertising revenue over the years. CBS was the 1st broadcaster to make an attempt to mimic Westinghouse's all-news formula. Locally in New York, WINS' success as an all-news station spurred CBS to make a similar transformation with WCBS in August of 1967, though that station did not go full-time with all-news until 1970. After completing the conversion of WCBS to all-news, 3 of CBS' other O&O AM stations also adopted the format. With this move, CBS-owned WCAU in Philadelphia & KNX in Los Angeles competed directly against KYW & KFWB, respectively, with varying results. In 1975, NBC Radio tried an all-news approach themselves with it's '''News & Information Service radio network, but the service shut down after only 2 years in operation. And, in the mid-1970s Westinghouse's 2nd Chicago station, WIND, carried the format part-time while competing against CBS-owned, all-news WBBM. WIND was not successful & Westinghouse tried again after selling WIND in 1985 & acquiring WMAQ in 1988, converting WMAQ into a full-time news outlet with mixed results. Today, the New York & Los Angeles outlets coexist with the format as CBS-owned sister stations. In fact, CBS Radio today operates 9 of the country's largest all-news radio stations. Hour newswheel * :00-:01- Headlines * :01-:02- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :02-:05- News Stories * :05-:06- AccuWeather's Extended Forecast (read by news anchor) * :06-:10- News Stories Continue * :11-:12- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :12-:13- AccuWeather's Extended Forecast * :15-:17- Sports * :20-:21- Headlines * :21-:22- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :22-:25- News Stories * :26-:28- Bloomberg Moneywatch Update * :29-:31- News Stories Continue * :31-:32- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :32-:33- AccuWeather's Extended Forecast * :34-:37- News Stories Continue * :38-:39- Entertainment * :40-:41- Headlines * :41-:42- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :42-:44- News Stories * :45-:47- Sports * :48-:51- News Stories Continue * :51-:52- Shadow Traffic updates every 10 minutes on the 1s * :52-:53- AccuWeather's Extended Forecast * :54-:55- News * :56-:58- Bloomberg Moneywatch * :59-:00- AccuWeather's Short/Extended Forecast (read by news anchor) Anchors * Lee Harris - morning top-of-the-hour news anchor * Brigitte Quinn - morning bottom-of-the-hour news anchor * Larry Kanter - midday top-of-the-hour news anchor * Susan Richard - midday bottom-of-the-hour news anchor * Brian Carey - afternoon top-of-the-hour news anchor * LC Mullins - afternoon bottom-of-the-hour news anchor * Jon Belmont - freelance news anchor * Jay Trelease - 5 AM to 12:30 PM Thursday traffic reporter * Pete Tauriello - Monday-Wednesday and Friday morning traffic reporter * Bernie Wagenblast - midday traffic reporter (to 3 PM) * Andrew O'Day - 6 AM to 11 AM weekday MoneyWatch reporter * Marc Ernay - morning sports reporter * Doug Thompson - afternoon sports reporter * Frank Garrity - overnight sports reporter * Bryan Thompson - overnight weather reporter * Andrew Torres - overnight traffic reporter * Matt Ward - afternoon traffic reporter * Dave Samuel - midday weather reporter * Jerry Recco - midday sports reporter * Dean DeVore - morning weather reporter External links *1010 WINS' Website *History of the station *WINS Historical Profile & Interviews - 1978